Constellation to buy Western Maryland wind power project 

Posted: 2:30 pm Mon, November 30, 2009
By Danielle Ulman
Daily Record Business Writer

Constellation Energy Group Inc. has signed a deal to acquire a $140 million wind power project in Western Maryland, the company said Monday.

Clipper Windpower Inc. will sell the 70-megawatt Criterion wind project in Garrett County, which is to include 28 wind turbines, to Constellation. The Baltimore-based firm will build, own and operate the project. The turbines will provide enough renewable electricity to power about 23,000 homes a year.

“These projects have the potential to produce high-paying construction jobs while increasing and diversifying energy supply in the state of Maryland,” said Mayo A. Shattuck III, chairman, president and chief executive officer of Constellation. “The Criterion project is an ideal example of the kind of innovative and sustainable energy project that can help Maryland meet its ambitious renewable energy objectives.”

Maryland requires that by 2022, 20 percent of power sold in the state will be renewable energy.

Constellation and Clipper expect the deal to close in the first quarter of 2010, with commercial operation to begin in the fall.

Frank Maisano, a spokesman for mid-Atlantic wind energy projects, said Constellation’s involvement in developing wind power in Maryland is a big boost for the renewable energy effort.

“The home base utility in Maryland is supporting homegrown renewable clean energy in the state, and that’s a strong signal they’re sending because Constellation is such a big company,” he said.

Clipper, with headquarters in London and California, was the first company to have its wind power project fast-tracked by the state Public Service Commission in 2008. Under Gov. Martin O’Malley, Maryland regulators can exempt qualified wind power projects from going through a lengthy approval process in an effort to get wind power online faster.

The PSC recently approved a different Garrett County wind project to be developed by Synergics Roth Rock Wind Energy LLC and Synergics Wind Energy LLC. Another wind project approved this year for Dan’s Mountain will likely not be built as the PSC approved it because of new zoning laws in Allegany County that require the project to be pushed back from homes and historic sites.

Clipper’s Criterion project has a 20-year agreement to sell power to Old Dominion Electric Cooperative, a nonprofit wholesale power provider that serves public electric cooperatives in Maryland, Delaware and Virginia.